it and temper which
have always been recognized as closely Christian. He thought the aim
should not be to endure pain and calamity with fortitude, but to
suppress evil desires and to cultivate discipline. There were
congregations in the earliest days of Christianity which were composed
of persons who wanted to lead a purer life than was common amongst
Christians. They adopted rules, as "counsels of perfection," such as
renunciation of marriage and of eating meat.[2177] The ascetic tendency
got strong sway in the church in the second half of the second century,
but the practices were voluntary, suggested by the religious impulses of
the individual, and the leaders tried to hold the ruling tendency in
reason. They held it to be absurd that self-inflicted pain could please
God.[2178] The tendency, however, could not be arrested. It was in the
age. All the philosophies except Epicureanism, and all the sects in the
mysteries, had encouraged it. The Christians had doctrines which were
not hostile to it. It therefore flourished amongst them. In the second
century there was a deep desire for a moral reformation, and to further
it moral discipline was formulated in rules and made a system. The
individual was taught to endure hardships, to drink water rather than
wine, to sleep on the ground oftener than on a bed. In some cases they
submitted to corporal cruelty, being scourged and loaded with chains.
The converse error here appeared, for they made a display of their
powers of endurance.[2179] The moral gymnastics could be best practiced
in solitary life. Many philosophers urged their disciples to leave home
and to practice elsewhere,--in another town or in loneliness.[2180] At
the end of the third century the ascetic party, in spite of the
withdrawal of the puritans, was very powerful. The ascetic sentiment was
stimulated and was spreading on account of the ideas of neoplatonism,
the increasing confusion in the Christian body, the excitement and
anxiety of a period of social decline, and finally on account of the
need to provide other means of expending the passionate love of God
which had formerly driven Christians to martyrdom. When the church
became a religion recognized by the state there was no more martyrdom. A
similar tendency marked the sects of philosophy at the same time. The
author of the _Letters on Virginity_ ascribed to Clement (about 300
A.D.) is a strong admirer of celibacy. He has heard of shameless
Christian men